Young Australians are becoming increasingly a generation of non-believers, according to an analysis of the 2006 census.
Secularisation is an emerging trend, the Australian Bureau of Statistics statistician's report concludes.
Since the 1971 census, when the "no religion" option was included for the first time, the number of people declaring no denomination has nearly trebled from 6.7 per cent to 18.7 per cent.
The shift is largely because of young people who are more likely to state "no religion" on their census forms.
In 2006, 7.9 per cent of Australians 65 and older did not specify a religion, compared to 23.5 per cent of those in the 15-34 age group.
An affiliation with Christianity has dropped since 1911, when 96 per cent of people called themselves Christian compared to 64 per cent in 2006.
The proportion of Catholics has grown over the same period - up from 22 to 26 per cent - while Anglicans dropped from 38 to 19 per cent.
The decline was due in part to an increase in migrants from Catholic-based countries, rather than the United Kingdom.
Migrants from other nations are also responsible for a doubling in the uptake of non-Christian religions between 1996 (at 600,000) to 2006 (1.1 million).
Australia's three most common non-Christian religions in 2006 were Buddhism (2.1 per cent of the population), Islam (1.7 per cent) and Hinduism (0.7 per cent).
The report - A Picture of the Nation - was released on Thursday.
Front page
RSS Feed